Grandpa gave me a hand operated meat grinder. Thought I'd try and grind up some duck breasts. Now, I know I will have to add some sort of fat to the meat to get it right. What kind of fat should i put in it? Would bacon grease work? (sorry if thats a dumb idea, but I have no clue.)

In my opinion, I would stay away from bacon grease. You are on the right track though, pig fat will act as a binder and has a very mild flavor that is why it is suggested as a larder in cooking. Probably not the healthiest thing but the quantity of larded meat we eat today it will probably be OK.

A little time saver: somehow attach a drill to the shaft instead of the hand crank. The appropriate sized nut driver works well. Don't go too fast, you don't want to ruin gramps' old meat grinder, but it saves a lot of work if you are doing a lot of meat.

Never made plain ground duck but I use pork fat in my duck sausage.

When I die I hope its in a duck blind, that, or shot in the back climbing out of a jealous mans bedroom window.

I have been thinking the same thing. I just ground my deer and found a few helpful hints. First try to partially freeze the duck for grinding, this helps it not turn to mush in the grinder. I mixed the deer with pork fat. This was for breakfast sausage and it turned out pretty good. Also with the duck breast watch out for the shot messing up the grinder blades, maybe cut the duck pretty small. Good luck! let us know how it turned out please.

Jeremy.zinn wrote:Grandpa gave me a hand operated meat grinder. Thought I'd try and grind up some duck breasts. Now, I know I will have to add some sort of fat to the meat to get it right. What kind of fat should i put in it? Would bacon grease work? (sorry if thats a dumb idea, but I have no clue.)

bacon grease will work, but I would add bread crumbs to help hold in the grease when you cook it, or add raw bacon instead of grease.

The Cajun 7 Course Meal; 1 lb. of boudin and a six pack of Abita beer.

Fowl Intentions wrote:I have been thinking the same thing. I just ground my deer and found a few helpful hints. First try to partially freeze the duck for grinding, this helps it not turn to mush in the grinder. I mixed the deer with pork fat. This was for breakfast sausage and it turned out pretty good. Also with the duck breast watch out for the shot messing up the grinder blades, maybe cut the duck pretty small. Good luck! let us know how it turned out please.

cheerserich

Did mine similar last year. I mixed probably 30% pork fat, 50% ground duck, 20% pre-made pork sausage and it came out pretty well. I double-ground the fat and duck, a coarse grind on each then hand mixed all the above ingredients and sent back through the grinder with the finer attachment to help mix the two better.